Edith Cowan University Research Online Theses: Doctorates and Masters Theses 1-1-2003 Mother what art thou? : a study of the depiction of mother figures in recent Australian and New Zealand fiction for teenagers Jane Siddall Edith Cowan University Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses Part of the Modern Literature Commons Recommended Citation Siddall, J. (2003). Mother what art thou? : a study of the depiction of mother figures in recent Australian and New Zealand fiction for teenagers. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1290 This Thesis is posted at Research Online. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1290 Edith Cowan University Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorize you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. Where the reproduction of such material is done without attribution of authorship, with false attribution of authorship or the authorship is treated in a derogatory manner, this may be a breach of the author’s moral rights contained in Part IX of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Courts have the power to impose a wide range of civil and criminal sanctions for infringement of copyright, infringement of moral rights and other offences under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. Mothe0 what art thou? A study of the depiction of Mother figures in recent Australian and New Zealand fiction for teenagers. by Jane Siddall Cert. Child Care. BA (Hons). A Thesis Submitted to Fulfil the Requirements for the Award of Doctor of Philosophy (English) at the Faculty of Community Services, Education and Social Sciences Edith Cowan University. Date of Submission: February 2003 USE OF THESIS The Use of Thesis statement is not included in this version of the thesis. TO MOTHER Who U)(ZS more or less like ALL mothers, but she U)(ZS mine, and so-She excelled Dedication in The Book ofRepulsive Women By Djuna Barnes - 'For my mother - Shona £awne Sidda/T ABSTRACT This thesis is a study of the representations of mothers and mother figures as found in five contemporary (published between 1984 and 1999) novels for teenagers. The focus is on western constructions of motherhood, as both normalising and universalising discourses. Utilising a variety of critical approaches this thesis examines the socio-cultural issues present in the novels in conjunction with western models of maternity. This study argues the category of mother is interdependent upon the category of child. As children's literature often focuses on the development of the child, the mother figures are often read as the "unconscious" of the texts. I examine the extent to which the mother figures are given a "subject-in-processness" (Lucas, 1998, p.39) subjectivity. The texts considered are The Changeover(First published in 1984) by Margaret Mahy; Grey/ands ( 1997) by Isabelle Carmody; Speaking to Miranda (First published in 1990) by Caroline Macdonald; Touching earth lightly (1996) by Margo Lanagan and Closed, Stranger (1999) by Kate De Goldi. In part, the selection of the texts has been based upon the various and multifaceted relationships between the mothers and the children. I use the Mahy text as a means to establish selected mother and, to a lesser degree, child characteristics. Some comparisons are made with this sole text of the 1980s, in order to ascertain if there has been an evolution in the articulation of mother figures in the 1990s. This study does not adopt a survey approach nor does it claim that the five novels present all the categories of "mother". Rather ii it addresses categories such as, mother as nurturer, as sexual being and, importantly, the dichotomy of the "good" /"bad" mother. Within western discourses of maternity, this latter category is still used as a model by which to label women who mother. This study considers the stability of this binary within the novels. This thesis relies upon close reading of the primary texts. The emphasis is on critical approaches that draw attention to contexts, with particular emphasis on the socio-cultural issues present in each particular novel. My readings suggest that there is the possibility for engagement with the texts' social content/ comment, in conjunction with the representations of western models of maternity. I draw from a variety of motherhood discourses and theoretical approaches, including amongst others, the work of Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous, Judith Herman, Martha Fineman, Rose Lucas, and Robyn McCallum. iii I would like to thank the following: • The authors whose work I used in researching and writing this thesis; especially Luce Irigaray (my philosophical and theoretical "mother") whose work continues to challenge, provoke and nourish me. • My supervisor Dr Richard Rossiter for his support, criticism and advice. • Dr Susan Ash for timely and useful advice. • Pauline Carroll for offering me lecturing, tutoring and marking in the area of Children's Literature. • Jane Platel for the many ways she has assisted me during the writing of this thesis, and whose daughter, Rebecca, was born in September 2002. • The ECU Postgraduate Association for providing me with "a room of one's own", and the Australian Government for awarding me an APA scholarship, both of which made this project possible. • Justin Wasserman for numerous cups of tea and coffee. • The Library staff at the Mount Lawley Campus of Edith Cowan University, especially Nicki Baker, Vicki Jones and Gina Sjepcevich. • Susan Clancy of Charles Sturt University for her encouragement and for commenting on an early draft chapter on Grey/ands. • Kevin and Carly Gallagher and family for their (continued) kindness and friendship when I was in Christchurch, New Zealand in January 2001. • Fellow PhD comrade Annie Rule, for her friendship, her sense of humour and for the (essential) EastEndersvideos. • My parents Shona and Alan Siddall, for their unconditional love and support. • My husband Craig Hallsworth, my children Jed Siddall and Djuna Hallsworth, and the cats Fugazi and Boo-boy- absolutely and positively the finest family a woman could have - merci • and Chance (yeah for Chance!) V Table of Contents Abstract ii Declaration iv Acknowledgments v Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The Changeoverby Margaret Mahy 25 Chapter 2 Greylandsby Isobelle Carmody 75 Chapter 3 Speaking to Miranda by Caroline Macdonald 124 Chapter 4 Touching earth lightly by Margo Lanagan 168 Chapter 5 Close~ Stranger by Kate De Goldi 21 7 Concluding Remarks 262 Bibliography 273 vi Our culture defines a mother as a woman who bears a child out of her body and/or raises a child or children, a woman who alone peiforms for those children the social function of mothen,zg - nurtunng, healing, teaching, seroing. Judith Arcana - Our Mothers' Daughters(p.5). Introduction: So what is a mother? This dissertation is, fundamentally, an examination of mothers as presented in five contemporary Australian and New Zealand children's/teenage novels. Discussion of the concept of maternity/ motherhood entails the presence of a child or children, and thus the title of "mother" is bestowed upon the woman concerned. This study addresses both maternal spaces and child spaces - when, where and how they intersect. On the whole, the texts in this study reflect white middle-class cultural concerns surrounding maternal practices. Most of the mothers represented enjoy economic security, and as predominantly white women they represent the majority culture. One mother is a Maori woman. Some comment will be made on how she is situated as a mother within dominant cultural discourses. As a consequence of the cultural bias, many of the concerns of this thesis reflect those found in contemporary white, western constructions of motherhood. Thus this dissertation focuses on "universalising" theories and "normative" models of maternity. The five texts under consideration are (in chapter order): The Changeover(First published in 1984) by Margaret Mahy; Grey/ands (1997) by Isabelle Carmody; Speaking to Miranda (First published in 1990) by Caroline Macdonald; 1 Touching earth lzqht(v(1996) by Margo Lanagan and Close~ Stranger(1999) by Kate De Goldi. Regarding notions of universalising and normative models of maternity I draw from a range of sources. In a chapter from The Neutered Mother, The Sexual Family and Other Twentieth Century Tragedies, titled "The Sexual Family", Martha Fineman ( 1995, p.145) argues: In this chapter I want to elaborate on some of the core assumptions inherent in our current social and cultural narratives about the family as an institution. These assumptions have tremendous significance in the political and legal definition of the family and, hence, for the fate of mothers. The legal story is that the family has a "natural" form based on the sexual affiliation of a man and a woman. The assumption that there is a sexual-natural family is complexly and intricately implicated in discourses other than law, of course. The natural family populates professional and religious texts and defines what is to be considered ideal and sacred. The pervasiveness of the sexual-family-as-natural imagery qualifies it as "metanarrative" - a narrative transcending disciplines and crossing social divisions to define and direct discourses. The shared assumption is that the appropriate family is founded on the heterosexual couple-a reproductive, biological pairing that is designated as divinely ordained in religion, crucial in social policy, and a normative imperative in ideology.